In her book Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Langer says that focusing on what’s possible, instead of relinquishing hope based on what’s thought not to be possible, can promote better health — no matter how old you are. Langer titled her book after a groundbreaking 1974 “Counterclockwise” study in which she virtually recreated the year 1959 in an area monastery. From the furnishings to the television programs, music, newspapers and daily discussion, everything was retrofitted to a time some 20 years earlier. Langer sought to discover whether returning the mind to an earlier, healthier era could also return the body to a healthier state.

When the study participants — elderly men who at first appeared to be frail and dependent — lived in this environment for a week, the results were nothing short of amazing. Their height, weight, gait, posture, hearing, memory, appetite, dexterity, arthritis, blood pressure and general well being improved in those mere seven days. “We even took photographs of them at the beginning, and at the end of the week,” Langer says. “People who knew nothing about the study evaluated the photos. And according to these unbiased witnesses, they [the elderly men] even looked younger. The ‘magic’ lies in being aware of the ways we mindlessly react to social and cultural cues.”

Many studies of this nature led Langer to the psychology of possibility — putting the mind in a healthy place and then measuring changes in the body. ...